We are still working at HM LK in our 10 man group. We went in last night, after having a not so great Tuesday, and did alright. We had 20 pulls left for the week, and spent 3 hours on 15 of those pulls. It was a fairly productive night of work with him, and I didn’t feel like killing kittens when we were finished. Of our 15 pulls, 5 of them made it into the final phase. Several of them had RNG mishaps – the disease dying on a ghoul that delayed behind while we were moving for the transition, the disease stacking poorly on shamblers and going into the final phase with a shamble up, etc. But all in all – it was a very good night’s worth of work.

We actually started working on our new soaking strategy, and had a few pulls where the soakers were doing great…but we failed at defile. So, as we took a few pulls towards the end of the night, and it became clear that our focus was spent, we decided to “practice” our defile. We flipped the sucker to normal and spent about 30+ minutes just practicing defile and soaking in phase 3. Sure, things line up differently, but we forced ourselves to learn how to move from the defile. I felt it was very productive.

The group as a whole has been dedicating more time to the encounter, which is commendable because this is their off time. The end results being: getting into the first transition in less than two minutes, getting out of the third phase in four valks (less if our warlock gets picked up), having only one raging spirit up as we come up from the first harvest soul, and learning to maneuver with/around defiles in our final phase. I think we should have a kill soon. I hope. It needs to happen before 4.0 hits – I am concerned that I will not be able to deal with the tank damage with the changes to my class.

25 Man Progress

We are still chugging along. We made some progress on HM Halion again this week, which is always encouraging, and the majority of our raid team seems to want to go back in for Alone in the Darkness. We plan on taking a few pulls on this next raid reset, having cleared Ulduar out with the weekly this week. We are continuing to feel out our raid team very carefully as the end of the expansion looms even closer.

On Patch 4.0 –

I am concerned. As a guild, we tend to raid until one or two weeks before the expansion releases. My biggest concern is with our ability to be able to continue and do this with the class changes coming in 4.0. Most notably with healing. My concern lies in the fact that everything the devs have said regarding healing in Cataclysm, and the direction they are taking, being a very large move away from the WotLK healing model. So…exactly how are we supposed to continue healing in ICC with a new and vastly different tool kit that was specifically designed for a completely different healing model? We are supposed to heal “spammy” damage with a toolkit focused on “non-spammy” heals? Am I missing something here?

Perhaps I’m just being a worry wart, but I am hugely concerned by this. Maybe everything will be ok, maybe it won’t.

On Alts –

Elentari – She is about half way through level 70. I actually have some really interesting thoughts on how healing on a low level druid without all of the tools that you may be used to on a higher level druid can make you a better healer, that I’m debating doing another post about. Other than doing the daily with her, I’m just stockpiling some of her rested XP. She also learned the Crazy Alchemist’s potion – so I’m pleased about that!

Nadine – She has made it to Northrend and is about half way to 72. I have truly enjoyed the Northrend questing with her, and found the Vyrkul storyline that I’ve seen in Howling Fjord to be fantastic. As horde I always wondered why we were battling against the Vyrkul – so much is explained in the alliance story line!

I’m still trucking along with tanking, and so far, it’s not bad. I think my biggest complaint is that Righteous Fury isn’t automatically active when you switch over into a prot spec. I often do the first pull of an instance before realizing that I don’t have it turned on. Also, Divine Plea solves so many problems. Why aren’t paladins given this sooner?!?! (I know, I know, they do in Cataclysm).

All in all, I’m mostly enjoying my space goat. And since she’s on my second account, it gives me something to do while camping for my Frostbitten achievement on Beru.

On Achievements –

Speaking of achievements, I only need Dirkee for Frostbitten. I managed to snag both Aotona and Vyragosa yesterday. And actually, I only snagged Vyragosa because I’m such a fail ret paladin, and after dying (again) I tabbed over to Beru – and there she was! I was so excited. Now if only Dirkee would spawn, I’d be finished with this horrible achievement.

Of course, then I will continue to work on Bloody Rare. But supposedly the TBC rares are easier, due to the zones being less crowded.

On Cataclysm –

There are changes a brewing. We are having some discussions currently about the direction we’d like to take the guild in Cataclysm. We will also be offering folks the opportunity to switch their mains in Cataclysm. This is something that I’ve given a lot of thought to, as I’ve been fairly unhappy with what I’ve been seeing reported about resto druids in the beta. Not only that, but the seeming lack of concern from the devs regarding the feedback they are receiving from druids in the beta.

I am worried, and I have considered moving to one of my other healers for the expansion. But, I’ve been a druid since Vanilla. I just can’t see changing now, especially with all of the work I’ve put into Beru. So, for better or worse, I’m going to stay a druid. I spammed healing touch, I rolled Lifebloom, and I learned to love rejuv. I’m sure I’ll fare fine with whatever changes come my way.

Speaking of Cataclysm, we opened up a fun little contest to the guild to guess the release date of the expansion, and we’ve gotten some very interesting guesses! Personally, I picked 11/18/2010. When do you think it’s going to release?🙂

(quick edit! I am a little behind in replying to comments. I promise, it’s coming!)

From what I have heard it is impossible to heal HM LK with Cata heals. That is only rumor though, I don’t personally know any healers on the beta.

That’s one of the things that worries me about the way they are changing healing. Yes, I agree the system needs work but healers are the only ones getting substantially less powerful in the next Xpac. Not only are we going to get hit hard in 4.0 but as we level our heal costs will go up while the coefficients go down. DPS and tanks aren’t looking at changes like that.

Or like somebody else put it on the forums, “I don’t mind drinking but I don’t want to be the only one doing it”.

It will most likely be released on the second of November according to mmo-champ😉

Regarding druid changes…I am extremely disappointed but if we are broken I am sure the devs will buff us…eventually.

My biggest issue right now is the epic fail that is our “mastery” and the fact its not retroactive which makes it useless and encourages sniping which is something that was too common in TBC imo and I dont want to go back to that.

I wont change main but I sure as hell will QQ all day long if things are straight up retarded.😛

I don’t think the nourish spam will work with the change in cast time to Nourish😦

It will be pretty shitty of Blizzard to leave HM LK tank damage as it is with the healer changes going live. Honestly, I don’t know if there will be any healer that will be able to do it. Maybe Resto Shaman?

I think we are just going to try to bust our ass to get it done before 4.0.

From what I’ve seen of 10 man HLK, it’s the druid that does the tank healing, while a disc priest handles the raid and such. So I would think with the new models I’m seeing being more tank focused, I would still think the healing would be possible. Again – I haven’t seen much face time on HLK, so I could be entirely wrong. I guess I’m just trying to remain optimistic, throughout the doom and gloom of druid reports I keep hearing about.

BUT! I did get a Beta key recently and I will spend most of my weekend poking around and trying to see first hand, just how good/bad things are. I would probably re-roll to a holy priest, if I had the opportunity – with what I know now, at least. I was very excited about their changes, I enjoy their trees so far and it’s fun.

Stumbled here after making my own blog, but HM LK *scares* me. Our 10 has icc on farm and we are working through the heroics slowly but surely. But Putricide and LK? ahahahaahahaha *takes breath* ahahahahhahahaha. And grats on getting all those northrend rares. I search everyday and I’ve yet to see one😦

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